UNITED NATIONS,
February 10 – After being exposed
for nepotism and corruption,
how is former UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon trying to
rehabilitate himself? His
spokesman Lee Do-woon is
telling friendly media that
Harvard University, even while
Ban was still UNSG, offered
him a professorship.

The
Korea Times reports that
"some say the professorship is
a 'lifetime position,' while
others say it is a 'visiting
professorship' that would need
to be renewed every year." Are
the geniuses at Harvard
following the prosecution
of Ban's brother Ban Ki Sang
and nephew Dennis Bahn and
what's coming out of it? NYU
paid attention. Not Harvard?

The Times
has a quote
that Ban "received the offer
from Harvard Kennedy School
toward the end of his term as
U.N. chief." Should job offers
be made to people still
ostensibly working for the UN?
Does Harvard routinely do
this?

The Korea
Herald quotes Lee Do-woon directly
on this timing, and that Ban
"has not yet made up his mind,
but the school suggested that
he may join whenever he
pleases."

But
why would Harvard makes such
an offer, other than to
collect former public figures
who were put in big jobs,
regardless of how they did in
them, and the corruption and censorship
exposed? Could it be Ban's
gripping, off the cuff
speeches? The impeccable
morals that led him to promote
his own son in law Siddharth
Chatterjee to the top UN job
in Kenya, as Resident
Coordinator working for UNDP?

The Korea
Herald puts the most pro-Ban
spin possible on the reason he
dropped out of running for
president, and says
Ban "left for Kenya on
Thursday to visit his second
daughter, Hyun-hee, an
employee at UNICEF, and
son-in-law Siddharth
Chatterjee, head of the United
Nations Population Fund in
Kenya."

This last
is simply inaccurate, since at
least August 2016. "Sid" was
moved from UNFPA to UNDP and
given, by Ban, the resident
coordinator position.

Ban
Ki-moon's nepotism, uncovered
first by Inner City Press then
by parts
of South Korea's press corps,
triggered him dropping out of
the campaign for presidency on
February 1.

On February 9 it
was reported
that Ban Ki-moon is headed to
a "family reunion." The article
only mentions Kenya, where in
August 2016 Ban promoted his
own son in law Siddharth
Chatterjee to the job UN job,
resident coordinator.

But some
ask, will Ban's brother Ban Ki
Sang who has still not be
extradited to the United
States be there? Or Ban's
other brother Ban Ki Ho, who
has mined in war zones in Myanmar
after appearing on a "UN
delegation" there, according
to a Myanmar government
website? That Inner City Press
exclusive, picked
up by the South Korean
press, has yet to be answered.

Tellingly,
and triggering this story, the
Korean article
says "Ban plans to meet and
encourage U.N. staff in Kenya
as a former U.N.
Secretary-General." Encourage
them in what? That if you have
a high enough position you can
have impunity for nepotism and
corruption, just don't try to
run for public office
afterward?

As
Inner City Press also
exclusively reported before
Ban's chief of communications
Cristina Gallach, still at the
UN, evicted
and still
restricts it, Ban's son
in law Siddharth Chatterjee
was part of an Indian military
unit which during his time
with them engaged in what are
described as war
crimes in Sri Lanka.

Under Ban
and his holdover spokesman
Stephane Dujarric, Chatterjee
was allowed to never
answer these questions,
and to tell "his" UN staff
that if they ever talked to
Inner City Press he would have
them fired. It's time for
answers: watch this site.

Ban
Ki-moon left the UN on
December 31, after dodging
Press questions about
corruption and, in fact,
evicting and restricting Inner
City Press. (Even 38
days later, Ban's photo is
still the one on the wall of
the UN's Uganda office, here.
Cult of personality?)

Tellingly
Ban's first move in early
January was to take legal
action against the press.
Before he left, he named his
own son in law Siddarth
Chatterjee to the top UN
top in Kenya.

In South
Korea, Ban Ki-moon's campaign
to run for president failed on
February 1, as his long decade
of corruption and censorship
were quickly exposed (see Sisa Journal,
and this
in English from Hankyoreh,
including Inner City Press'
reporting on Ban's brother Ban
Ki Ho mining
in Myanmar, listed by
the government as part of a
"UN delegation").

Now
this, from the Korea Herald,
echoing what Inner City Press
found and reported about Ban
Ki-moon at the UN, leading it
its eviction one year ago and
restriction still:

"Young,
working-level diplomats were
aghast at some of their
retired and even incumbent
seniors rallying behind the
former foreign minister. Some
senior officials rushed to New
York to 'help Ban return
home,' while others churned
out videos, photos and memos
via Facebook and Kakao Talk in
an overwhelming,
worshipping-like fashion,
extolling the
secretary-general’s legacy and
personal character." (Yes,
failed cult of personality.)

"One official,
who worked with Ban and is now
nearing retirement, had
initially given up an
ambassadorial position due to
his daughter’s US citizenship,
which disqualifies him for the
job. With Ban’s ratings
soaring, together with his own
chances to serve the next
administration, he recently
changed his mind and persuaded
his daughter, who is married
and lives in New York, to
abandon her citizenship.
Rather disenchanted with the
'Ban syndrome,' meanwhile, a
group of working-level
diplomats had initiated a
signature-collecting campaign
against his presidential run."

Then on
February 1, barely three weeks
after Ban Ki-moon returned to
South Korea, amid mounting
corruption charges Ban Ki-moon
dropped out of the race he
long used the UN for.

He
said, apparently without
irony, "I have decided to fold
my pure-hearted plan."

His
claims to have known nothing
about the charges against his
nephew Dennis Bahn and brother
Ban Ki Sang make no sense,
given that Inner City Press
asked Ban's spokesperson about
them, for example at the May
15, 2015 noon briefing on
UNTV. It won't be the Blue
House (South Korea's
presidential mansion) - could
it be the jail house?

On January
30, Inner City Press staked
out the annual meeting of the
United Nations Correspondents
Association, a group which had
made Ban Ki-moon their guest
of honor at a $1200 a plate
dinner on Wall Street on
December 16, 2016. Inner City
Press asked if the honor
should be revoked. One
correspondent said yes.

It was the
previous year, on January 29,
2016, that Inner City Press
went to cover and live-stream
the UN Correspondents
Association's annual meeting
held in the UN Press Briefing
Room. Ban's spokesman Stephane
Dujarric, still somehow at the
UN, at the request of UNCA big
wigs asked Inner City Press to
leave, without showing any
paperwork that the event was
"closed."

Inner City
Press asked for the basis, but
said if a single UN security
officer asked it to leave, it
would. An officer arrived and
said, The spokesman wants you
out. Inner City Press left,
and wrote the story and
uploaded the video.

Three
weeks later Ban's head of
communications Cristina
Gallach, still promoting
herself at the UN even for an
event in March 2017, ordered
Inner City Press out of the UN
after ten years, with no
hearing, no appeal. At her
(and Ban's) direction Inner
City Press' files were thrown
in the street, and its office
is being given to an Egyptian
state media Akhbar al Yom
whose correspondent Sanaa
Youssef rarely comes to the UN
and never asks questions (but
is a past president of UNCA).
This is disgusting and must be
reversed.

Ban's
spokesman Dujarric canceled
the February 1 noon briefing,
ostensibly in exchange for an
11 am stakeout by Ban's
successor Antonio Guterres.
We'll have more on this.

In 2016
Ban's UN spokespeople
repeatedly told Inner City
Press that Ban was "all UN"
until January 1. But now Ban
has said he decided in
December. On January 25, Inner
City Press asked Ban's lead UN
spokesman Stephane Dujarric, UN transcript
here and below.

And on
January 26, when Inner City
Press asked about efforts to
ascertain with whom Ban met,
using the UN, spokesman
Dujarric claimed that daily
schedules which are taken
offline are in fact online. Video here. From the UN transcript:

Inner City
Press: there are some in
the South
Korean media asking to
know where it's available to
find the daily schedules that
are put up every day.
Are they just thrown out, or
is there some repository of
who met with the
Secretary-General…?

Spokesman: Well, I'm
glad you're… you've asserted a
role as the Spokesman for the
South Korean media but they
can look on the website, and
everything should be archived.

Where? Meanwhile,
Dujarric threatened Sisa
Journal in South Korea for its
reporting (he said it wasn't a
threat.)

***

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